Crime and Punishment

Effective law and order requires effective punishment. Do you agree?

It is important that effective law and effective punishment comes hand in hand. Without effective punishments, laws would not be as useful as it should have been. A law without any punishments included is as if to tell the criminal to commit more crimes and not get any consequences for his doings. Similarly, when ineffective punishments are imposed for laws, the criminals would still continue to commit the same crimes as the punishments will not deter them from committing more crimes. Hence, effective laws will ensure the effectiveness of the law and order in a country. A good example would be Singapore, where the effective laws, coupled with effective punishments, ensured law and order in the country. This could be shown by the extremely low crime rate in Singapore. However, some countries, usually the less developed ones, have ineffective punishments. One example would the use of boiling oil to test the integrity of the suspects. Though this might be useful for some criminals that has no courage to retrieve the ring in the boiling oil, it might not be useful for others as this is merely a test of courage and endurance of pain. Hence, in this case, effective law and order is not ensured as there is ineffective punishment.

Any form of punishment that is effective in maintaining law and order is justified. Do you agree?

I do not agree that any form of punishment that is effective in maintaining law and order is justified. Examples of such punishments which I do not agree should be used would be inhumane as well as sadistic punishments. Such punishments might be able to deter many others from committing the crime which a criminal that received the punishment has done, but it will also result in many who resent such a government that uses such punishment on criminals. What could eventually result might be the overthrowing of the government. Ultimately, this would disrupt the law and order in the country as well. However, most effective punishments will be able to maintain long term law and order without creating resentment in the people. Such punishments should be justified.